Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić, known as Werner Herzog, is a German screenwriter, film director, author, actor and opera director...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth5 September 1942
CityMunich, Germany
CountryGermany
dream cinema film
In my films, I hope there are a few moments where you feel almost illuminated, like in a state of ecstasy, stepping out of yourself, beyond yourself and perceiving something which is only, in the case of cinema, possible in collective dreams.
lying believe cinema
I do not believe in the Cinema verite. Sometimes a really good lie is better than any truth.
imagination cinema mysterious
There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.
athlete thinking cinema
Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs.
cinema poetic made
One of the most original and poetic works of cinema made anywhere in the seventies.
powerful cinema film
I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade unprecedented in the history of cinema.
achieved deeper dignity ecstatic fleeting gives meaning moments remains short strive tried truth whether work
ecstatic truth. I've always tried to strive for a much deeper truth in the images, in cinema, in storytelling, on a screen, so whether I've achieved it or not remains to be seen. . . . There are short fleeting moments when I know that I have achieved it. And to work for that and to strive for it and to try, gives at least some dignity and some meaning to my existence.
audience audiences encouraged exactly films fraction people present screening speak tiny witnessed
I'm making films for an audience out there and a very tiny fraction of them are would-be filmmakers. But let's speak of them-the would-be filmmakers, the tiny fraction. I've witnessed many times when I've showed films and was present at a screening that exactly those people feel very much encouraged by what I'm doing.
access depth digital domain instant man precision record shoot wait
I'm old-fashioned; I'm a man of celluloid. I think it still has a depth and a precision that you do not have in the digital domain, and the digital domain has some disadvantages. When you shoot something and record it with a digital camera, you have an instant access to it - you don't have to wait for the dailies.
bigger build men pyramids
Yes, the pyramids have been built, but if you give me 300,000 disciplined men and give me 30 years, I could build a bigger one.
lion odd usual
We are still doing somersaults for it. It's the usual pandemonium that makes moviemaking an odd profession, and I am the lion tamer.
courageous course demons easy gave haunted himself love opinion perhaps telling
Of course this is me revisiting my own past, going into the wilderness, telling a story, perhaps not the one I set out to tell, ... I had no opinion about Treadwell . . . I gave him space, let him tell me his story. And it was pretty easy to see that he was haunted by demons -- illuminated, courageous and cowardly, exhilarated and in love with the idea of himself as a star.
believed boring films german-director mainstream stories strangely
Strangely enough, I've always believed that my stories were mainstream stories; the films are narrated in a way that you never have a boring moment.
exists forgotten hidden knows minutes nobody
Only 30 minutes from where I live, there is a completely hidden and forgotten archive. Nobody even knows that this exists here.